The bill from Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) would create the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park. The park would be comprised of all artifacts left on the surface of the moon from the Apollo 11 through 17 missions.

The bill says these sites need to be protected because of the anticipated increase in commercial moon landings in the future.

“As commercial enterprises and foreign nations acquire the ability to land on the Moon, it is necessary to protect the Apollo lunar landing sites for posterity,” according to the text of the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act, H.R. 2617.

The measure would allow the government to accept donations from companies and foreign governments to help manage the landing sites and “provide visitor services and administrative facilities within reasonable proximity to the Historical Park.”

“Visitor services”? If you’re visiting the moon and you haven’t brought your own “services,” you’ve got bigger problems than sightseeing.

They also want the Apollo sites designated as official UNESCO World Heritage landmarks, which lends an interesting nuance to the word “World.” But that’s probably the only route here to carving out the Apollo sites as no-go areas for the rest of the planet. Under a 1967 UN treaty signed by most countries (including the U.S.), you can’t stake a claim of national sovereignty to any part of outer space. It’s the “province of all mankind.” If Vladimir Putin wants to send a few cosmonauts up to plant a flag with Edward Snowden’s face on it on the Apollo 11 site — a scenario that feels less unlikely than it should, given the state of relations with Russia these days — there’s nothing stopping him legally as far as I know. You’d have to amend the treaty, and even then there’s nothing stopping him in practice besides a strongly-worded White House letter of disapproval. As interventionist as O may be, he’s not about to deploy troops to the moon to protect old landing sites. Or is he?

How did this become a legislative priority worthy of introducing a bill in the House, anyway? The Apollo sites can’t be more than a few acres; commercial interests have the whole rest of the moon to shoot for, and if they end up dumping on a site that’s sacred to Americans, they’ll deal with reprisals here at home. That’s incentive enough to keep them away. Did I miss something important in the news lately about China eyeing a dilithium crystal mine underneath what’s left of a U.S. moon rover and now we need to act fast? Or is this just a way to jumpstart new funding for American space initiatives by appealing to a source of national pride?

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

This sounds like a public relations ready project for the UN. Let the UN designate those sites as a Human Heritage Site for all mankind. It would be one of those “caring” things the UN is so known for, and best of all, there aren’t any teenaged girls for UN peacekeepers to get at.

It’s a typically absurd and pointless gesture to show that Dem-lefties are all spacey and sciencey and stuff despite the fact that they pretty much advocated for and successfully killed all manned space efforts.
.
Also, despite their self-styled image of being ‘smaht’ and super sciencey hip, every left-prog I’ve ever encountered or observed avoid the hard physical sciences and engineering like a vampire avoids sunlight in favor of social,artsy, and creative fields where they can basically just make sh!t up.
.
Which includes, of course, the propaganda alchemy of “journalism”

I’m for it, when we see commercial, private activities on the Moon, I don’t think we want to see the Apollo 11 LEM end up on ebay. But I hope these same Democrats will also help remove the obstacles to commercial space industry development currently being larded on by the Obama Admin…

commercial interests have the whole rest of the moon to shoot for, and if they end up dumping on a site that’s sacred to Americans, they’ll deal with reprisals here at home. That’s incentive enough to keep them away.

Exactly. If I’m a commercial outfit looking to tap the Moon’s resources, the very last thing I’m going to do is mess with any of the Apollo gear I come across. If only because of my own appreciation for what it represents.

Under a 1967 UN treaty signed by most countries (including the U.S.), you can’t stake a claim of national sovereignty to any part of outer space. It’s the “province of all mankind.”

Under precedent established by the current President, I’ve decided that the afore-mentioned law doesn’t apply to me. As such, I’ve already claimed the Moon and Mars as my own.

My attorney is in the process of filing claims against anyone who uses pictures of, graphic representations of, descriptions or any other references to either of those planetary bodies. These claims are being filed retroactively for people who infringed upon my property historically as well.

commercial interests have the whole rest of the moon to shoot for, and if they end up dumping on a site that’s sacred to Americans, they’ll deal with reprisals here at home. That’s incentive enough to keep them away.

Pffft, like anyone gives a crap what Americans think or hold sacred anymore (least of all our own government). That Americans hold it sacred – and would assuredly do *nothing* in reprisal – would be ample motivation for those folks to take those artifacts, trash the place, then sell them on eBay when they return to Earth.

If you’re visiting the moon and you haven’t brought your own “services,” you’ve got bigger problems than sightseeing.

They mean permits to enter the parks and permission fees to take pictures and pose with the detritus artifacts. Sheesh.

This bill is just a way to create another sop for some cronies to be employed by the bill sponsors via “allow(ing) the government to accept donations from companies and foreign governments” and I have little doubt they have some cronies in mind.

Until I see exactly how many acres they want to cord off, I’m gonna suspect that this is more a means to prevent commercialization of space, than anything else.

Also, that flipping Space Sovereignty needs to be amended. It’ll be ignored outright eventually, so we might as well get ahead of it and amend it in a manner that limits governments overt involvement with extra planetary regulation, while still allowing commercial enterprises.

The measure would allow the government to accept donations from companies and foreign governments to help manage the landing sites and “provide visitor services and administrative facilities within reasonable proximity to the Historical Park.”

The only national park where Smokey doesn’t have to worry about forest fires.

But seriously, the very idea of creating a park with “vistor services” in a location that only very rich people can visit makes perfect sense. My guess is that Ms. Edwards and Mr. Johnson have too many unemployable kinfolk to simply foist on the government in the usual way. We’ll soon find out that the moon ranger’s facilities are within reasonable proximity to the moon if they are located in MD or Texas with facsimiles of the artifacts and moonscape of the “real” park.

“As commercial enterprises and foreign nations acquire the ability to land on the Moon, it is necessary to protect the Apollo lunar landing sites for posterity,” according to the text of the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act, H.R. 2617.

Gee, how many people are rich enough to pay for the spaceships, rockets, and supplies necessary to get them to the Moon and back?

And if a foreign government wanted to desecrate one of the Apollo landing sites, who would stop them? Are we going to post American troops around them to protect them?

I’ve got a cheaper idea…put enough people to protect American landing sites on Earth in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas from invasion from the south. They wouldn’t even need spaceships, rockets, or space suits.

Oh man, I had forgotten about that show…and after watching the vid I remember why I had forgotten it! What a crap fest that show was!

It’s amazing to me that here we are in the year 2013 and we aren’t anywhere near being able to explore space in the manner depicted in Space:1999 let alone 2001: A Space Odyssey or 2010: The Year We Make Contact!

I believe the reason we are not further along is because our space exploration has been run by the gubment. Had space exploration been handed to the private sector we may already be colonizing the moon and mars by now!

But yeah, lets setup a national park on the moon…I mean really? Can we now say the Dems have lost their ever living minds…this is truly moon-battery…no pun intended!!

Within hours of the decision Wal-Mart announced it was canceling three store openings in the area.
Nice work, Democrats.
WTOP reported:

The D.C. Council has passed a bill that would require large retailers like Wal-Mart to pay workers at least $12.50.

The bill now goes to Mayor Vincent Gray for his consideration. The 8-5 vote was short of the votes needed to override a veto from the mayor.

In a statement, Wal-Mart says the Council has forced the retailer’s hands and it will abandon three planned projects in the District.

“We will not pursue Skyland, Capitol Gateway, and New York Avenue and will start to review the financial and legal implications on the three stores already under construction. This was a difficult decision for us – and unfortunate news for most D.C. residents – but the Council has forced our hand,” the written statement says…”